


nunquam non paratus

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: British Government Cats RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 00:31:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13135398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: The Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is an office maintainable by the public purse.





	nunquam non paratus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/gifts).



The Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office—

(oh, well, _Larry_ , if one insists; compassionate Conservatism and all that, though it is of course a non-political appointment)

\--is maintained from the public purse in the sum of £100 per annum, for room and board and the occasional appeal to veterinary science. Benefits, pension, etc, all at Civil Service standard grading, mutatis mutandis. 

Palmerston – who is maintained at the expense of Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, in the august incarnanation of a biannual cake sale – considers this an egregious waste of taxpayers' money. He's never caught a damn thing.

*

Gladstone's an interesting case. More of a decorative piece. _Red's his colour_ , coos the _Telegraph_ , showing him being removed from the Treasury red boxes, and poring over the Autumn Statement.

(Palmerston despairs of the British press. "Poring" and "purdah", not "pawing" and "purrdah", for goodness' sake. One may make allowances for a redbrick education, but only so far.)

It's suggestive, however. A cat that needs to be removed from red boxes is one thing. Whitehall tends to the chilly and each successive Finance Act is more insulating than the last. But a cat that allows said event to be documented on his Instagram – which is an innovation in communication from the United States of America, Palmerston understands – is a cat losing its grip on the political realities. 

It may be that Freya will not be the only Treasury cat to be removed to the country. Harsh, Palmerston would observe, but necessary. One can't allow one's utility to diminish to the merely aesthetic.

*

Contrary to recent reports from the London Assembly—

(and the inaccuracy is understandable, Palmerston would be quick to reassure; politics at the regional level just isn't of the calibre required for – well, one needn't spell it out)

\--cats are not mostly Tory. The first Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office served a Labour government. 

That said, it did topple after nine months.

*

Back to Larry. Palmerston would rather not return to such a dispiriting subject, but we all have our crosses. Larry, during whose tenure as Chief Mouser a serving Prime Minister has been reduced to throwing a fork at a mouse. Who slumbered on a hot-air vent while the entire Cabinet despaired at his lack of industry. Who has brought neither prey nor distinction to the Cabinet Office. 

Who has less skin to his ear, these days, and is in dire need of a new collar.

Palmerston lives to serve.


End file.
